International Law

Preemptive Peace

By Karl-Friedrich Lenz

As Glenn Greenwald notes, there are no achievements to justify a Nobel Prize for Barack Obama.

Unless one counts beating McCain/Palin in the election, which was probably a major contribution to world peace, or sees it as an extraordinary achievement that Obama already is in office for nine months without having started any other illegal wars.

However, this award may still turn out to be justified. Just as the Americans like the idea of preemptive war, that is war based on something some other country might or might not do in the future, this prize might be understood as based on the idea of preemptive peace, that is based on what Obama might or might not do in the future. He has at least three more years to start more illegal wars, escalate the existing ones, and block investigation of American war crimes as well as serious countermeasures to global warming.

That will be that much harder to do as a Peace Nobel Prize winner.

And whatever one might think about his policies, Obama does give good speeches. It will be interesting to hear what he might say at the occasion. There might be even some hope that this time a nice speech will be followed up by some meaningful action.

Full post as published by Lenz Blog on October 10, 2009 (boomark / email).